A while back I was chatting with @drifand about his experiences with ballpoints.
We both have a keen appreciation for some of the older, harder to find ones. In particular PILOT Hi-tecpoint (not to be confused with the Tecpoint V5 and V7 Precise), which is the ancestor of the Hi-tecpoint very fine tip liquid ink pen. He told me about a few others and then one in particular caught my eye. The MechaSEA. This was made by a Japanese motorcycle artisan, initially debuted in 2017 at the Osaka motorcycle show. This was written up already quite nicely by @drifand, so here’s the LINK.
It appears to be discontinued, although some stock is still floating around. Amazon has it.
The casing blew me away. It’s extremely heavy, deceiving one to believe the MechaSEA is heavy. It’s not, as it’s made mostly of aluminum. Extension and retraction is extremely simple–you just rotate a little knob on the back end (that obvious disc), until you reach the detent for full extension. The clip is the real attraction as it’s complicated, more so than anything LAMY or Platinum ever made. The most fascinating thing about it, is when it’s in the extended position, part of the refill mechanism is visible, so you can see it move when you extend/retract the refill.
Overall, I’d call it a conversation piece. It’s actually ergonomic, and by design anti-roll. Still, it feels like a delicate piece of machinery that I wouldn’t want to use every day. But it’s a fascinating, highly unique writing instrument. I sure wish they’d made a matching mechanical pencil, but that’ll very likely never happen.
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I’m glad you managed to get one of these
I applied some WD40 with a q-tip to the contact surfaces of the clip assembly… cycled through the action and now it’s smooth as butter. I also stretched out the pen spring a bit to give the cam a firmer feel when locked in place.
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Thanks for the tips, Kelvin. Did you take apart yours to apply that WD40? Or just applied it with the clip extended up? I think I see what you’re talking about…
Those outer surfaces have a slight rubbing with the body and you can feel a little friction there. Also, on the curved upper edge of the clip… it’s pretty sharp, a hot spot. Is yours like that too?
As for the knob, I find mine has really good tension so I’ll leave the spring as-is.
[EDIT]
Just a quick note, the title is a play on two old rock songs from the 1970’s. Mighty Quinn by Manfred Mann. Their original lyric: “You’ll not see nothing like the Mighty Quinn.” And “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet” by Bachmann Turner Overdrive. Two old classics. Maybe it’s revealing too much. '
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Yup - that’s the lube spot. I’m not crazy enough to take it apart, yet. The upper ridge of the clip – not sure what you could do about it. It’s not super sharp to me, and I wouldn’t try to sand it, etc.
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I’m thinking just a touch of micromesh, maybe. You don’t feel like those pointed ends are sharp? They are quite pointy to my fingers. But as long as that area is avoided, it’s a non-issue.
By the way, I have learned that the MechaSEA is not discontinued. Apparently some vendor sites that sell them ran out of stock and chose “discontinued” as the label.,
The company responded to my inquiry. They apologized for the bad links on their website. They do intend to keep selling this pen and who knows, possibly successor models down the road. They also intend to continue providing replacement parts as needed.
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